The most anticipated smartphone launch of the spring -- the Galaxy S IV -- was held yesterday in New York City. Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (KSC:005930) largely delivered on the hype, with a smartphone packed with proprietary touchless control technologies, a 1080p screen, and a greatly improved camera. Critics pointed to the larger size as potentially being too much, and attacked the plastic case design, but that didn't stop Samsung from receiving a lot of positive press.

That good show appears to have Samsung's foes rattled. Following Apple, Inc.'s (AAPL) pre-eventmedia blitz trashing on the GSIV, fellow Android phonemaker HTC Corp. (TPE:2498) has tagged in with some attacks of its own.

The company posted attack posts on Twitter during the launch event. One post parodied Samsung's tagline of "The Next Big Thing" with the hash-tag "#theNextBigFlop".

Outside the Samsung event, HTC team members demoed their rival HTC One device. The handed out cocoa and $100 coupons for the HTC One. Comments HTC President Jason Mackenzie to All Things D, "For us it’s a good opportunity to let people compare real-time. We have the best smartphone in the world right now, and we want to seize the opportunity to get it into as many hands as possible."

The HTC One

The Taiwanese company's CMO Ben Ho followed up with some more insults, commenting:

With a continuation of a plastic body, and a larger screen being the most obvious physical change, Samsung's new Galaxy pales in comparison to the all-aluminum unibody HTC One.

This is more of the same. HTC remains the best option for those people looking for the best technology wrapped in premium design. Our customers want something different from the mainstream, who appear to be the target for the Galaxy.

Our customers want original cutting-edge technology, mouth-watering design and a premium feel from their mobiles, which is why we created the HTC One.

He also toldEngadget, "Looking at the software features of the S4, we think Samsung spent more on marketing than innovation."

The noisy attacks seem a bit ironic coming from a company whose corporate motto is "quietly brilliant". But perhaps HTC is a little jealous of all the attention Samsung received; while the Samsung GSIV event was heavily covered, TV media largely ignored HTC's flagship launch of the 1080p One smartphone.

Eliminating the additional buttons is a plus, those are a waste. I've seen people complain on several occasions about accidentally hitting them when using certain fullscreen apps or games where the phone is being used sideways.

quote: These things are basically mini-computers in our pockets. No removable storage options is just..dumb at this point.

Removable storage on even a desktop PC is barely needed. Optical media is dead and things like flash drives, while useful, aren't really much needed either. Networks and cloud storage dude.

I do understand wanting to expand storage past the base model, but when there isn't room for the mounting needed for storage then it just can't fit. There are other options if you want other designs that allow for physical storage mounting. The Galaxy series can, the One and the more practically sized iPhone and Nexus 4 cannot.

The One is good hardware though. It is saddled with Sense though, almost as bad as TouchWiz, and ultimately it is stuck with Android's far inferior ecosystem and second rate polish. It is certainly better quality hardware than what Samsung has to offer.